'It’s not the time for finger pointing': Ontario premier says she won't have hospitals revert to mixing chemo drugs

TORONTO — Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is vowing to immediately rectify the problem of watered-down chemotherapy drugs, but she won’t tell hospitals to go back to mixing their own medications.

There is a gap in oversight of companies like Marchese Hospital Solutions, which mixed the drugs for four hospitals in Ontario and one in New Brunswick, she acknowledged. The province and Health Canada are working to close that gap.

“But I really believe that it’s not the time for finger pointing,” Wynne said.

Many hospitals mix their own chemo medications. But Marchese was under contract by the hospitals to prepare the drugs, which were provided to more than 1,100 cancer patients, some for as long as a year.

The bags containing the chemotherapy drugs were filled with too much saline, watering down the medication by as much as 20 per cent.

But Wynne said she wants to wait for answers from experts, including the Ontario College of Pharmacists, before deciding what course of action her government should take.

The fact that the problem surfaced only where the mixing had been contracted out may not be the problem, she said.

“I’m not going to make that cause-and-effect link, I think that’s what the review needs to do,” she said.

Ontario has an excellent health-care system, but it’s not perfect, Wynne said. When problems crop up, her government will fix it so that it doesn’t happen again, she said.

The college is willing to be the body that provides oversight of relatively new compounding facilities like Marchese to fill in any gaps, Wynne said.

“There are lots of people who have a piece of the oversight pie,” said Health Minister Deb Matthews.

A pharmacy expert, Jake Thiessen, will do a review of the province’s cancer drug system and a working group that includes doctors, Cancer Care Ontario, Health Canada and others are also looking at the problem, she said.

“What I said to them is: this is not a time for finger pointing,” Matthews said. “I want all of us collectively to do what’s best for patients.”

It is a time for finger pointing, said Progressive Conservative Lisa MacLeod.

Once again, the governing Liberals are trying to wash their hands of yet another health-care fiasco, she said.

The drug scare follows two spending scandals at eHealth Ontario, the agency tasked with providing electronic medical health records, and Ornge, the province’s troubled air ambulance system — both of which the government failed to oversee, she said.

“The government needs to start preventing these problems,” MacLeod said.

“It’s as if every time another crisis happens, Deb Matthews calls an oopsie. Oops, I’ve done it again. And it’s going to be OK, but don’t point your fingers at me.”